Pages tagged "Labor"

At the Democratic Socialists of America’s bi-annual convention in August, some 800 delegates representing more than 100 active chapters set three national priorities: the fight for Medicare for All (M4A); the revival of a strong labor presence both within and without DSA; and the election of open socialists to office. In the run-up to the crucial 2018 congressional and state legislative elections, DSA hopes to challenge the Democratic Party’s failure to offer a coherent economic justice program as alternative to the reactionary Trump regime.

Brooklyn College sociologist Alex S. Vitale poses that question vividly in his The End of Policing: Are the police guarantors of social peace or its disruptors? Is the force’s mandate to serve the public equally and fairly, or to act as social-control agents, protecting property and its few owners at the expense of the many?

Priorities Resolution for DSA National Convention August 3-6, 2017 Finalized September 7, 2017

Whereas national conventions set the main political and organizational priorities that govern the Democratic Socialists of America’s national work over the next two years, particularly in regard to the time and resources of national staff and the elected national political leadership, the National Political Committee (NPC), devoted to these tasks;

Whereas a nationally coordinated campaign, with the national staff and NPC supplying relevant guidance, literature and political education, in favor of both national and state-level Medicare for All and single-payer legislative bills and citizen initiatives (where possible) would provide DSA chapters the ability to campaign for a transformative working-class demand that would socialize the health insurance industry;

A crowd fills Independence Avenue during the Women's March on Washington, Saturday, January 21, 2017 in Washington. AP Photo/ Alex Brandon

By Peter Dreier and Donald Cohen

Saturday’s day of protest—against Donald Trump and for women’s equality—was successful in two significant ways.

First, it was the largest one-day protest in American history. Based on news reports from cities around the country, as many as 4.5 million people took to the streets. From 750,000 people in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles to 250,000 in Chicago, 60,000 in Atlanta, 26,000 in Des Moines, and 271 in Morris, Minnesota (with a population of 3,500 and only two stoplights), protesters took over America on Trump’s second day in office.

I’ve been thinking about Santa Claus and the lump of coal threat from folklore. Thinking about it in relationship to this month, which is the anniversary of one of the highest miner death tolls in a single month in US history, December 1907.

Two of those December 1907 disasters were forever associated with Santa Claus, or at least St. Nicholas when immigrant lives were saved by their refusal to give up their holiday to their corporate masters. In Monongah, West Virginia, and Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania, it seemed to some that St. Nicholas had intervened on some workers’ behalf, sparing them. Catholic immigrants were still celebrating St Nicholas in the western tradition on December 6 when the Monongah disaster struck. In the eastern tradition, the feast day was on December 19, saving Slavic immigrants celebrating near the Darr mine at Jacobs Creek. It became known as the great intercession, a tale handed down through the years and in the icons of the Church.

Women workers demand shorter work week in the May Day Parade in New York City in 1936

By Johanna Brenner

Mainstream and social-democratic feminists seem to agree that something has to be done to ease “work-family conflict.” Women will never achieve equality without universal child care and certainly the United States is woefully behind the most advanced capitalist nations, particularly the Nordic countries, which provide well-paid parental leave (mandated in some instances for fathers to use) and publicly funded child care. Yet, I am concerned about the political arguments that are currently circulating to defend initiatives such as universal pre-kindergarten or paid parental leave. I’d like to see us develop a politics of care that not only supports the limited changes we might win today, but also connects to a vision that reaches far beyond the horizon of what capitalism will allow.

Democratic Socialists of America expresses its dismay at the Washington Post editorial editor Fred Hiatt's termination of Harold Meyerson’s contract with the paper. Meyerson, a DSA Vice-Chair, has been one of the few weekly columnists in a major paper who consistently promoted workers' rights and economic alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. Meyerson enjoyed 13 years at the Post and Hiatt had never previously expressed any displeasure with his column.

While the public seethes at growing inequality, the corporate media refuses to analyze the issue in an in-depth manner. And all too few columnists write in these venues from a pro-labor perspective. Only public pressure can alter this practice

We urge our members and friends to protest Meyerson's termination by writing to: letters@washpost.com

We have a special issue of Democratic Left devoted to labor once a year, but DSA locals support unions and the labor movement all year long. Here are some highlights from the past year:

Central Ohio DSA members joined forces with Interfaith Worker Justice to create the Central Ohio Workers’ Center. Members of DSA were key in doing the paperwork to obtain 501(c)(3) status and bringing in a pro bono lawyer. The center’s focus is on know-your-rights outreach to immigrant workers, especially the large Somali community as well as the growing Latino community.

No, the acronym ISDS does not refer to the Islamic State (ISIS) -- though ISDS may pose an equally grave menace to the world in the long run.

ISDS stands for Investor-State Dispute Settlement. Thanks to the recent WikiLeaks publication of the classified draft Investment Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (to have been kept secret for four years after the entry into force of the TPP agreement), we know that the ISDS is to be the unaccountable supranational court for multinational corporations to sue sovereign governments and obtain taxpayer compensation to recover the alleged loss of “expected future profits.”

Consideration of the status and the changing structures and organizing strategies of the U.S. labor movement is an important element in developing a new strategy for rebuilding the democratic left.

DSA Honorary Chair Harold Meyerson has written an important long-form piece on current developments in the U.S. Labor movement for The American Prospect. Below are excerpts and a link to the full article. -- Editors

A growing share of the organizing in labor today is already taking place outside the structures of collective bargaining. Unions are organizing domestic workers, who have no common employer. They are organizing taxi drivers, who are self-employed. The AFL-CIO’s major organizing effort, Working America, is a community-based campaign that until recently hadn’t dealt with its members’ workplace concerns or had a presence in those workplaces. And in the fight to raise Seattle’s minimum wage to $15, even though few if any of the beneficiaries were or would become union members, Rolf ended up bargaining with employers on behalf of the city’s entire working class.

Join Steve Max, a founder of the legendary community organizing school, the Midwest Academy, to practice talking about socialism in plain language. Create your own short rap. Use your personal experience and story to explain democratic socialism. Prepare for those conversations about socialism that happen when you table or canvass. This workshop is for those who have already had an introduction to democratic socialism, whether from DSA's webinar or from other sources. Questions? Contact Theresa Alt <talt@igc.org> 607-280-7649.

DSA was concerned to find out that the company that provides our website and online organizing infrastructure, NationBuilder, had as a client the Trump campaign and other right-wing candidates. Progressives built this kind of infrastructure and tools for digital organizing and we have now lost that organizing edge. We are moving to identify other options for a CMS/CRM. As an under-resourced, member funded organization, this move will take time for us to carry out, but it is an important statement for us to make.